


Stand-in

by SilentAuror



Series: The End of Illusions [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Denial, F/M, HLV fix-it, Jealousy, M/M, POV Third Person, POV: John Watson, POV: Mary Morstan, Sexual Frustration, Still a Johnlock fic, Unrequited Love, despite the sort-of het, post-HLV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-06 14:49:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1861884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentAuror/pseuds/SilentAuror
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is home but nothing is right between them. Mary is beginning to have suspicions about what and who John really wants to be with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stand-in

**Stand-in**

 

Whatever else one could say about it, at least John is generally quiet about masturbating. 

She has friends who hate it when their husbands and boyfriends masturbate. She understands that it’s something they all do, regardless of whether or not they have a source of regular sex around and while she doesn’t entirely understand, Mary has long since accepted it. Personally, she doesn’t see the need to go to all the work of getting herself off if there’s someone conveniently around and willing to do it for her, and besides, she loves getting intimate with John. 

Not that they’ve done that lately. Not in months. Depressingly long, in fact; it’s the fifth of January and John’s been back home for nine days now. She’s hugely pregnant (three and a half weeks till the due date and she’s counting the days at this point) and John, despite being a doctor and supposedly above such foolish superstitions, “doesn’t want to hurt the baby”. How very inconvenient, given that with the extra wash of hormones running rampant through her body, a little less prim concern would be quite welcome at the moment. 

He was gone for five months. Over half the pregnancy, at least to date. She will never forgive him for that, not ever. It’s not something she can even let herself think about without getting so angry that it would be impossible not to show, now that he’s finally deigned to come home. Either way, it’s been at least five months since she last heard him furtively jerking off in the bathroom, as he’s currently doing. She doesn’t know if he stands in the tub or at the sink or just does it over the toilet, but she can hear the faintest whisperings of the dry skin of his palms on the flesh of his dick and she can hear his breathing. He tries very hard to stifle himself, but sometimes, especially toward the end, he’ll get a little too loud. Not vocal, but his breathing will get heavier, almost rasping. Sometimes he curses to himself. Sometimes it’s just _yes_. She doesn’t know what he fantasises about, to whom he’s saying yes. He never says that to her when they’re together. 

She knows he masturbates in the shower, too. Seems like a natural place for it. Easy enough to clean up. Or hide. Whichever it is. She’d walked into the bathroom once while he was in the shower, without knocking first. “Just using the loo,” she’d said cheerfully, and John had half-choked on a gasp. 

“Christ, Mary, you could knock!” he’d said, sounding both annoyed and out of breath. 

Had there been the sound of something buzzing? It was difficult to tell over the shower water. Either way, it had disappeared. Sex toy, she’d thought, possibly. It was an annoying thought, rendering her vaguely uneasy. Most men’s sex toys, as far as she knows, have to do with anal play. And liking a bit of that doesn’t mean anything, just… it’s another warning flag.

Any woman who voluntarily involved herself with a man who hadn’t got over mourning his dead best friend after eighteen months of intensive grieving should be wary. It’s never been that she doesn’t trust John; it just behoves one not to be naïve about these things. Gay men delude themselves into being straight all the time. She’s known people whose marriages have broken up because of exactly that. (She’s killed people whose marriages have broken up because of exactly that, a job rising from an angry ex-partner’s desire for revenge, though she’d long since outgrown such petty, amateur-level work.) And then Sherlock had turned out to not be dead after all, transforming John from a grateful, sad-eyed, overly-sincere lover into a gun-toting, temperamental man whose joie de vivre had returned with vigour. She’d have been more suspicious if John’s sexual appetite hadn’t seemingly re-awoken with it, though she’s aware of the paradox that poses. He’d always liked sex well enough before that, was tender and gentle and usually satisfying, though not always. Once or twice he’d had a bit of trouble keeping it up. But once Sherlock seemingly returned from the dead, he’d wanted it more often, was rougher and more enthusiastic – sometimes pestering her for it more than once per day, and almost every single time he came home from a crime scene with Sherlock. It was one of the reasons she hadn’t minded John constantly running off with Sherlock. It’s the adrenaline, she’s told herself all along. The reason for his grief was taken away and now he’s doing something exciting again; it’s only natural that he would be so much more alive sexually now, too. 

Only it’s not only that. She’d never heard or caught him masturbating before Sherlock’s return. And he’d never had sexual dreams the way he’s done since then, either. That happens usually at least once every two weeks, if not more often. She’s woken up to him humping the mattress, apparently still asleep, moaning raggedly into his pillow, or straight-up jerking himself off under the covers. Usually she ignored it and pretended she was still sleeping, but one night she’d rolled over, eyes half-lidded and said, “You want a hand with that?” John had stared at her for a second as though she was a complete stranger (not the subject of his dream, then), then without a word, pushed her onto her back and plunged into her without so much as a caress, never mind a warning. She’d been sore in the morning and rather cool with him over breakfast. John had been red-faced, half-angry and half-ashamed and refused to talk about it after his terse (and reluctant, she’d thought) apology. After that, she’d left him alone during those sorts of dreams. She’s watched, though, watched him gripping and squeezing his own arse as he furiously fucks his hand, his back turned to her. Once he came so much that there was a sticky mess on the floor on his side of the bed in the morning. She’d made him clean it up and he’d barely spoken to her the rest of the day. Ashamed, she’d thought, and was particularly nice to him for the next few days to make up for it. 

He hasn’t touched her, not sexually, since before the shooting. He sleeps next to her in bed, facing away. Even non-sexually, she’s noticed that he avoids it if he can. He used to always sleep on his back; clearly he isn’t comfortable with the concept of sharing a bed with her again just yet, whatever he said on Christmas Day. Well, Mary reminds herself, he did say that he was still pissed off at her. Even after five months. She supposes she’s supposed to be grateful that he came home at all. If he wants to see her grovel, he can think again. On the other hand, how ridiculous is it, that she’s standing here in the kitchen, one hand resting on the top of the swell of her belly, the other on the counter for balance, listening to her own husband rub one out in the solitary confinement of the bathroom, while she is right there – shut out and aching both physically and emotionally for him to decide he loves her enough to one day possibly consider having sex with her again. 

She should start getting it somewhere else, just to punish him. Only that would be pointless, if she’s hoping it will ever get any better than this. It has to. He came home. Who’d have known that John was capable of holding a grudge this long? 

Mary sighs. 

***

The day she finally succeeds in locating his toy, she confronts him with it. Not nastily. It’s the tenth of January now. She is bigger than ever and he still hasn’t touched her. Just two nights ago, she’d tried to instigate it, in bed. She’d turned toward him and laid her hand on his forearm and he’d twitched away as though her very touch had burned him. Trying not to feel insulted, she’d said his name, trailing off, trying not to sound like she was about to attempt to strike a bargain, or worse, plead. _Come on. Don’t just be here in body. Tell me you still love me. Show me._ Instead the silence had lengthened between them and after awhile, she broke it. “Is it… I know I’m huge right now…”

John had heaved a sigh. It took him a few minutes to formulate a response to that, the air between them charged as he struggled to put something into words. At last, he said, not much above a whisper, “It’s not that. It’s just… it’s going to take some time, all right? That’s the best I can do.”

Mary let her hand go limp on his arm. It was disappointing, so much less than what she’d hoped for, and didn’t seem to be showing any signs of changing soon. “How much time?” she’d asked, her voice flat but at least emotionless. 

John had shrugged, his annoyance clear even in the dark with his face turned away. “I don’t know. I’ll know when I’m ready.”

Mary had turned onto her back then, feeling like a beached whale. “Fine,” she’d said, though it really wasn’t. What’s the point of forgiveness if it still means he can prolong his childish grudge for the rest of their lives? How long is he going to sulk about the fact that she shot Sherlock? (She hasn’t apologised for that and if he thinks she’s going to, he’s got another thing coming.) It takes her a long time to fall asleep, lying there in a pool of her own discontented thoughts. 

That night he had one of his dreams again, a particularly gripping one, it seems. She was sure that he was at least half awake as his hips pushed up off the bed, thrusting into both the air and his hand, jerking away inside his pyjama pants. This time Mary hadn’t pretended to sleep through it, propping herself up on an elbow to watch. “That’s it,” she murmured, voice lower than usual with sleep and unsated yearning of her own. “Do it.”

John made a sound somewhere between exasperation and arousal, but didn’t stop – too far gone, maybe. Mary had bit her lip, then seized the opportunity. She reached over and slipped her hands into John’s pants, quicker than lightning, before he could refuse her, wrapping her hand around his pumping fist and joined him in getting him off. He hadn’t looked at her or acknowledged it in any way, but he’d started thrusting harder and then came a few strokes later, his come shooting up and all over his t-shirt. He’d fallen back, panting, and for a bit neither of them had said anything. Then John had shaken off her hand and rolled out of bed, going into the adjoining bathroom. He’d closed the door all the way behind himself and then Mary heard the water was running. When he came back to bed, he lay down on his back, obviously aware of her there, beside him and awake. “Er,” he’d said, clearly uncomfortable. “That was – ” He’d stopped, leaving the blanks unfilled. 

_Nice? Satisfying? Good to feel her hands again?_ Mary had waited, but when it seemed he wasn’t going to finish, she pursed her lips a bit and said, “You’re welcome.”

He frowned at that, but didn’t argue. Instead he’d only turned away from her again and went to sleep. It had taken her much longer, awake and keyed up and upset all over again. 

And then, yesterday, she found his toy. Stashed deep in a shaving kit in the bottom drawer beside the bathroom sink, only there were no razors inside, just the toy. Clearly an anal toy, meant to stimulate the prostate. It looked harmless enough. She sits down on the sofa and holds it in her lap, touching it as she waits for him to come home, this thing that has somehow been in places in John that she’s never touched. 

He’s here now, his step on the stairs leading up to the flat. He opens the door, sees her, sees it, and stops in his tracks, his mouth falling open. He closes it again, his mouth flat and froglike as he swallows hard. 

She smiles at him, almost innocent. She means this to be playful and fun, not confrontational. Phase three of their sex life has to start sometime; why not incorporate something new? They could experiment. If John really needs to have the anal thing in his life, she can handle that, as long as he lets her in on it. She’s determined to keep him from having secrets like this from her. She’s his wife. He’s supposed to share the sexual stuff with her. “I was cleaning,” she says. A thin excuse, but it will do. “And I found this. Wasn’t sure what it was at first, but I think I’ve figured it out.”

A mottled flush is creeping up from John’s collar into his face. He doesn’t speak, though, mouth still clamped shut. 

Mary turns it on, touching it, and notes that the very sound makes John swallow again. “Don’t look so worried,” she says, scrunching her nose a little, trying to look reassuring. “I’m totally intrigued. I thought maybe we could try it sometime? I mean, I know you’re worried about the baby, so I thought maybe we could just… focus on you?”

John’s face is redder than she’s ever seen it before, his mouth tight, lines deep between his brows. Then – “No,” he says tersely. He crosses the room swiftly and snatches his anal stimulator out of her hands. “Don’t – that’s not – I don’t – ”

Mary feels a bit as though he’s slapped her for prying. She’s sitting cross-legged but wishes she could pull her knees up to her chest, curl in against his rebuke. Maybe he thinks she should apologise. (Keep waiting.) “Then could we do something else?” she asks, her voice low. 

John isn’t looking at her, the toy gripped tightly in his right hand while the fingers of his left flex and release repeatedly (stress, she knows). “Like what?” It’s directed to the floor, his entire face still lobster-red, even his ears. 

Should she go and stand by him? No; that will only scare him off further. “There are… positions,” Mary says delicately. “Or we could, you know… try anal.” He doesn’t respond to this, eyes fixed firmly on the carpet. “Not on you. With me, I mean. I’ve never done that, always thought it would be worth a try.”

“Why are you asking me that?”

She doesn’t have to look at John to know that he’s angry. Very angry. Angrier than he was just a moment ago. She’s taken aback. “I just – it just seems like something that wouldn’t hurt the baby, and like I said, I just thought maybe – ”

“Because I have this?” John asks, making a jerky, abortive gesture with the toy, still avoiding her eyes. “Men have prostates. It’s hardly uncommon. It doesn’t mean – I’m not – it doesn’t have anything to do with – ”

“I know,” Mary says quickly, though she’s certainly not sold. The more John stutters out his denials, his refusal to say the words _I’m not gay_ to her, despite that he’s apparently said it to nearly everyone who’s ever seen him with Sherlock, the less convinced she is. Obviously she and he have had plenty of sex. Obviously he’s into women. But that doesn’t rule out the possibility of bisexuality. Or single case exceptions. (No. Perish the thought.) “I wasn’t suggesting anything of the sort. I just – ” Being impatient makes Mary more willing to just be a touch crass. “Men aren’t the only ones with needs, you realise. I’m practically gagging for it over here.”

John finally looks at her then, some of the red seeping out of his face. For a long minute, all he does is look. Then, finally, he nods. “All right,” he says. “Tonight. We can try that – if you want.”

It’s the same win/lose situation as when Sherlock came back from the so-called dead, Mary realises: he’s agreed to have sex with her – but anal sex. What does _that_ mean? Still. It’s better than nothing. Lots of straight men like anal sex. Lots of straight women like anal sex, for that matter. It’s not something she’s ever been particularly keen on trying, honestly, but some people like it a lot, and if it means that John will actually touch her again, maybe there’s some hope for them after all. It’s just when you combine it with all the other factors. God only knows what he’s been up to with Sherlock for the past five months. _No_. He wouldn’t have. He wouldn’t have done that, and then come home. No: if John was going to cheat on her, he would do it all the way and just leave her for the other person. He wouldn’t – unless he did, and he misses having it that way so much that he’ll take anything over what he’s missing, even her. Depressing thought. She doesn’t want to believe it, but the doubt is there nonetheless. Maybe, just maybe, her shooting Sherlock made John angry enough that his very defensiveness of Sherlock has translated itself into attraction somehow, tipping the balance from her to Sherlock at last. If that’s the case, maybe it will disappear again once he finally gets over that hiccough. It’s ridiculous that he’s still angry. Or perhaps his newfound (is it newfound? She doesn’t even know) interest in anal sex, either giving or receiving it, has made him confused about his sexuality, and mixed in with his divided loyalties between Sherlock and herself, he’s mixed himself up thoroughly. Well: Mary will just have to show him that she can accommodate his needs, whatever they are. As long as he does it with her and no one else. 

***

That night, she’s still warm from the shower when John disappears into the bathroom, has a shower of his own, then comes out and gets into bed. He stays on his back at first, then says, as she waits, “Look, this is… well, we both know how prostate exams go. Turn on your side, away from me. I’ll need to use my fingers first so that the tissue doesn’t tear.”

It’s horribly clinical. It’s so far removed from the way he was when they first got together, a little slow, always gentle, always nice – sometimes too nice – safe, pleasant, polite sex. Warm kisses on her neck while he slowly moved within her, only rarely urgent and then only at the moment of his orgasm. After Sherlock came back, he was like an animal at times, hardly waiting until the door had closed behind him until he was charging at her and yanking her clothes off as she giggled, and they’d have sex right there on the sofa or in the kitchen, once – she was cooking and he’d come in, stood behind her and unbuttoned her trousers and pushed them down with her knickers and thrust himself inside her from behind. Suddenly she remembers now that all of the times when he was the most urgent came right after cases and he always wanted it doggy-style those times. Another flag, or just a position preference? Lots of men like it from the back like that. In the bedroom, it was always face-to-face, missionary style. But even that was harder and faster than he’d been at the beginning. To go from that – lukewarm, gentle, nice sex to hot and fast and a bit rough to this – cold and medical and completely emotionless – Mary swallows but doesn’t protest. Maybe, for him, it has to be like this for now. But it hurts. 

It hurts physically, too. John’s fingers are enough of an intrusion, even coated liberally with lubricant or vaseline or whatever he’s got on his fingers. She can’t imagine how much worse it will be once it’s his dick. She makes a small sound of discomfort. 

John stops moving his fingers. He hasn’t kissed her or made any sort of romantic overtures whatsoever, not a caress or a touch other than this and it leaves her feeling cold. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No,” Mary says at once. “It’s fine, I’m – just – ” She stops talking and John starts moving his fingers again, stretching her open. She feels weirdly exposed and slightly more humiliated than she thought she would find this part. 

It’s too soon when John sets the tip of his erection against her in warning, putting his hand on her hip to brace himself before he starts to pushes the head inside. Mary makes a sharp sound despite herself, then moans a little. John stops, only partway into her. “I’d, er, if you could – ”

Mary swallows and stares at the opposite wall, comprehending. “You want me to keep quiet?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.” John sounds both slightly apologetic and slightly embarrassed. 

Mary closes her eyes. He’s never minded her making a bit of noise in bed before. “Are you trying to forget that it’s me you’re with?” The question is blunt and hard and she doesn’t care. 

She feels John stiffen behind her. “What?”

“You heard me.”

He doesn’t move. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what it is: I’m asking if you’re trying to imagine you’re with someone else. Someone who isn’t me. Seems obvious enough.” Mary is both angry and hurt, and John isn’t denying it. 

John pulls out of her and turns away, swinging his feet down to the floor. He sits there on the side of the bed, palms beside him on the edge, head and shoulders bowed forward. 

Mary turns onto her back and looks at him, at the line of defeat and – something else that she can’t read just from his back. He’s breathing hard. She sags back into the mattress, not knowing what to say. Finally, she says, “John, I’m – I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to imply anything. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No,” John says heavily, his voice thick. “You shouldn’t.”

Too late, she realises that he’s crying – and why, she doesn’t know, exactly, but she can’t ask because he’s already off the bed and moving toward the bathroom, the door slamming shut behind him. She hears the sink water running at full blast but can still hear him. He’s crying and masturbating at once, furiously, his flesh slapping against his hand as though he’s trying to jerk it right off, his breath heaving. He gives a low moan when he comes, and then he’s cursing, a fist pounding on the counter, still crying.

Mary feels like the entire world is ending. She pulls herself out of bed, feeling cold and uncomfortable in body and like a snow sculpture melting away in the rain within. She finds her pyjamas and puts them on, ties her robe on over them, and pushes her feet into her slippers, then goes to the sitting room and curls up on the sofa with the blanket that’s always there. He wouldn’t be crying if she hadn’t touched on a nerve. So: he _was_ trying to pretend she was someone else, someone he wants so badly that he was even willing to try having sex with her again, so long as he didn’t have to look at her or touch her beyond the absolutely necessary for sex, hear her voice. After five months with Sherlock, he’s been moping and practically grieving all over again, taciturn and this time, unwilling or unable to share it with her, since it was she who shot Sherlock, after all. And now he’s back and acting like a rejected lover. The irony. His reaction to her discovery his anal toy, his willingness to try anal with her, his intense sexual hunger after being on the chase with Sherlock – she was a stand-in all along. Maybe she always had been. The way he’d come back to life when Sherlock had. Maybe the only reason he’d come back at all was because of the baby, or because he felt it was his responsibility. Or because he thought he didn’t have a chance with Sherlock. That Sherlock would never be persuaded to give sex a try, or that his bloody work came first, or something along those lines. Or maybe they had started and Sherlock had broken it off, told John (again) to go home. 

Home – back here, rather. Clearly John’s real home is Baker Street. Something about this thought makes everything clearer, though Mary couldn’t possibly explain why if someone were to ask. She has work to do. She would stay up all night, but the baby is restless and she feels worn out from this entire fiasco. In the morning, then. She pulls the blanket further over herself and tries to sleep. 

***

John is awake and making coffee when she comes home at half-past nine the next morning. He usually doesn’t work on Saturdays but she knows he agreed to cover an afternoon shift. And luckily one of her contacts with legal expertise doesn’t exactly keep regular office hours. His entire frame tenses when she comes into the kitchen and he refuses to even look at her, his hands shaking a little as he fumbles with a coffee filter. 

Mary stops in the doorway to the kitchen. She could almost pity him. Almost. “So,” she says. Predictably, he doesn’t respond, mashing the filter into place. “John.”

His shoulder twitches, but maybe that’s only because his unscrewing the lid to the coffee now. 

She’s going to have to do all of the heavy lifting, then. Fine. So be it. “I don’t want to drag this out,” Mary says, keeping her voice very even. “I think that last night said about all I need to know about where we’re going. I think it must be clear to you that no matter how much time we gave it, it wasn’t going to work for a couple of specific reasons. I have a petition for a separation here, ready to be signed. I’m assuming that won’t be an issue for you. I just have a couple of questions and I’d like honest answers. I think you owe me that much, at least.”

John stops moving, his head dropped toward the top of the coffee maker. “I don’t owe you anything,” he says stiffly. “You shot my best friend.”

Obviously he’s been nursing this, reminding himself of it to bolster himself as self-defense after his break-down or whatever that was last night. Mary forces herself to stay calm. “Maybe we can try being civil about this,” she says dryly. “First question: you admitted once on the honeymoon that you hadn’t really wanted to have kids. You backpedalled and said you were still excited regardless but I want to know if that original statement still stands. Do you want to have kids?”

John is quiet for a bit. Then he mutters, “Moot point now. I’m having one, apparently.”

“Yes, _we_ are,” she corrects him, anger rising in her throat. “Or _I_ am, at any rate. You’ve missed out on the entire pregnancy.”

“Yeah, because I was looking after my best friend after you shot him in the chest,” John retorts. He jabs at the button to start the percolation, but doesn’t turn to face her, still looking down. 

“Second question,” Mary says, ignoring this. “And I want an honest answer. Have you slept with Sherlock?”

John’s jaw immediately clenches, mouth working, his fingernails going white where they’re gripping the counter. He spits out his answer as though the word is burning his mouth. “ _No_.” 

“But you’d like to.” Mary waits. John is staring at the coffee maker as though determined to play deaf. “Come on,” she prods, finally exasperated. “It’s obvious! All that, after all those cases – I thought it was just adrenaline, but it was really just that you were turned on from all of it, Sherlock especially, but you knew you couldn’t do _that_ , so instead you would come home and practically rip my clothes off the minute you were in the door. I was nothing but a substitute for your misplaced lust for _him_. All of that, plus the anal stuff, plus the way everyone always thinks he’s your boyfriend – plus the way _he_ never denies it. I wouldn’t have cared if you were bisexual, you could have told me that – but you’re totally lusting after someone who clearly isn’t me – despite the fact that I’m nine months pregnant with _your_ child, probably from one of those times when you were fucking me and thinking of him!”

“STOP IT!” John yells, louder than she’s ever heard him before. He’s jerked around to face her faster than she knew he could move, both fists clenched, his face red with fury. “Shut up! Just shut up!”

“The louder you protest, the truer you can make it,” Mary retorts sarcastically, feeling her own face heat in rage. “You’ve wanted him all this time. I just didn’t see it soon enough.”

John picks up a wine glass stained with pinot noir from five days ago and hurls it across the kitchen where it shatters against the far wall. If she weren’t pregnant and a woman, he would have punched her, Mary thinks. If so much as tries, she’d have him flat on his back and whimpering for mercy within seconds anyway, and they both know it. Even in her condition. “Shut… the _fuck_ …up,” John grits out through clenched teeth. “You don’t know – _anything_ – about me or about Sherlock. And you just couldn’t fucking leave it alone, just let me be – you had to push it – you couldn’t – ”

“If I had waited any longer, it wouldn’t have made any difference,” Mary interrupts, fed up with this stream of invective, of excuses. “You can deny it all you want, but it’s obvious. It’s Sherlock that you want. Isn’t it.” John looks away and suddenly Mary’s at the end of her rope. “Isn’t it!” she screams. 

Quiet falls. John squares his shoulders, his temper fading suddenly. His lips press hard together. Then he turns his face and looks her in the eye, chin lifting slightly. “Yes,” he says shortly. 

The single word nearly undoes her. Mary has to hold the edge of the counter, suddenly dizzy. _Oh, God._

“I was trying to ignore it,” John continues, quietly but very steadily. “All this time. Ever since he came back. We were engaged. And Sherlock and I, it was never – _that_ , before, so I concentrated on the fact that I had you. I was making it work. All right, yeah, I would get – er, turned on by the adrenaline. And by him. But I always came home, didn’t I. I always made sure I didn’t slip. I was making it work, to be with him the way we used to, and to be with you the way I was supposed to. And then you shot him. I know it took a long time to come back, but – you _shot_ him. You shot Sherlock, right in the heart. But we’re married and there’s a child on the way and I’m not the sort who runs off and leaves a family behind. So I did everything I could to focus on the fact that we’re having a baby and that I needed to do the right thing. Nothing has ever happened with Sherlock and nothing ever will. And we never, ever needed to have this conversation, but you forced it out. You just had to go and do that, so now you have your answer: yes. It’s Sherlock that I want. He will probably never even want me that way at all, so it never had to be an issue. But you just – ”

“Bullshit,” Mary cuts in rudely, feeling cut to the very bone by this. And here she’d thought it was only the shooting that had confused John into thinking he was attracted to Sherlock. But it was really Sherlock all along. “Anyone who’s ever met him knows he’s completely and utterly obsessed with you,” she says bitterly. 

John goes still. “Not like that,” he says, with difficulty. 

Mary rolls her eyes. “Fine. Deny that, too. It seems to be what you’re best at. Just sign the damned papers and get out of my flat.”

John sucks in his cheeks, mouth pursing the way it does. He glances at her. “You mean it,” he says. “You really want this separation.”

“It hasn’t been a year yet,” Mary says coolly. “Once it has, we can get divorced properly. Meanwhile, I’ve stipulated sole custody. That’s why I asked about the having kids thing. You can visit – if you even want that. So go on: sign and then run back to Sherlock. See how much noise _he_ makes the first time you bugger him.”

John’s teeth grit together again. “You say one more word about him and I’ll – ”

“You’ll what?” Mary is contemptuous. 

John’s nostrils flare slightly, white at the edges. “I’ll turn you in for having shot him,” he says. “And I made a back-up copy of that memory stick. Just so you know. So shut up, and _stay_ shut up. I mean it. Not another _word_. You nearly killed him as it is. You don’t get to do any more damage.”

Mary closes her mouth and swallows hard. “I should have shot him in the head when I had the chance.” It’s nasty but she’s smarting, and at the moment she means it with all her heart. 

John glares at her and holds out his hand for the papers. “Where do I sign?” Without waiting for an answer, he flips to the back page, then opens one of the drawers and finds a pen. He scrawls his name then slams the pen down onto the counter. “I’m out, then,” he says. “Don’t shoot anyone. Stay away from us. I’ll have my stuff out by tomorrow night.”

“I don’t ever want to see you again,” Mary tells him, feeling dull and sick. 

“You won’t.” It’s a promise. John is brusque. He turns off the coffee maker and leaves the room, leaving Mary standing there alone, leaning on the counter for support. 

***

Somehow his key seems to turn in the lock of 221B Baker Street with greater ease than it ever has before. John has a suitcase and his backpack and a strangely lighter heart than he’s had in five and a half months. He left here on Christmas morning with Sherlock, already knowing that he wouldn’t be coming back (though half-wishing that Mary wouldn’t accept his forgiveness – though he’d known she would when she accepted the invitation to Christmas dinner with the Holmes connection). He’d thought it was the last time he’d be able to call Baker Street home, even temporarily. He was doing the right thing. The morally correct thing. The honourable thing. 

But he loves Sherlock. He’s known since the night he was shot. Known for vastly longer if he’s honest, but he doesn’t even know when it really began. He’s known about the attraction from the first, but loving him has made is thousands of times stronger, a draw to Sherlock so strong that he couldn’t say which parts of it were strictly physical and which were strictly emotional. And he doesn’t know whether it’s at all mutual, though when Sherlock learned he’d forgiven Mary, he’d made no reaction at all except for a slight compression of the lips. He hadn’t been surprised, at any rate. What Mary said gives him hope, not that she meant for it to do so. Before, he couldn’t have acted, anyway, not with his marriage still unresolved and hanging there like the dark cloud it cast over the entire autumn. But now he’s back, and he’s a free man. No assassin-wife, no impending baby. Well, yes, but not one he’s expected to incorporate into his daily life and try to be happy about having there, keeping him from Sherlock and binding him more and more firmly to Mary. He expected to love the kid, of course, but he never wanted to actually have any. He’ll visit his daughter. Of course he will. Be as much a part of her life as she wants. But if Mary wants sole custody, he won’t fight her for it. He’s allowed to choose this, now – this life, and Sherlock, if Sherlock will only have him. 

He makes it up to the landing before he hears Sherlock’s footsteps cross above him, coming to the open door of the flat. They’ve barely spoken since the day on the tarmac when John thought he’d lost Sherlock all over again, for God only knew how long this time. Never mind that: Sherlock is here now, looking down at him from the top of the stairs. He takes in the suitcase and the backpack with one quick pass of his quicksilver eyes. “John,” he says, his customary greeting, but there’s something wary to it, like suppressed anxiety, perhaps. Or simply a question? 

It’s time to find out. John carries his suitcase up the rest of the stairs and sets it down. Then he turns to Sherlock and opens his mouth to speak, then stops himself. There’s no need. Up close, Sherlock actually looks slightly fearful and for a second, John catches a glimpse of what he strongly suspects is actually rather a lot of emotion. It’s all there, all unspoken. As it’s always been, perhaps. John swallows around the lump that’s suddenly formed in his throat. He’s not sure if he can speak and decides to forgo the words. Instead he takes a large step toward Sherlock, put a hand on the back of his neck, his thumb resting against Sherlock’s jaw, and puts his mouth on Sherlock’s, kissing him deeply. Sherlock hesitates for exactly one second before responding in kind, as fully as John is giving it, his mouth and tongue strong against John’s. After a moment, his arms come around John and John gets his other around Sherlock’s back and it’s the very best thing that’s ever happened to him. He knows this now. Knows in his bones that if this had ever happened – before the wedding, after the wedding, after the shooting, any time at all – he never could have left. He was such a fool. He should have asked. Should have found out this was there before he made the gargantuan mistake of marrying the very person who almost took Sherlock from him permanently. He’ll never be so stupid again, because now Sherlock is in his arms, his lips somehow warmer than John ever imagined. He will never leave Sherlock again.

After a bit, they break apart, and Sherlock is looking at him as though John is a miracle, his eyes wide and full of unspoken things. Later, there will be time to say them all, John thinks. At last. “I’m home,” he says. 

And Sherlock smiles.

*


End file.
